Hopper loaders for conveying sheets in an edge-standing arrangement and to a hopper are already known in the prior art. One example is shown in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,929 wherein there is an extended conveyor for supporting sheets in the edge-standing arrangement and advancing those sheets into the hopper. In that conveyor construction, the sheets are initially loaded onto the conveyor, such as by hand or overhead crane or like loading activity. In all known instances, the sheets are set onto a fixed horizontal entry conveyor section and they are then advanced toward the hopper loader. That prior art arrangement requires that the sheets be manually lifted, or otherwise mechanically deposited, onto the conveyor entry section which is above the floor level at a significant elevation and thus it requires considerable lifting or hoisting.
The present invention improves upon the prior art in that it provides for the conveyor entry section to be pivotal downwardly to where the new supply of edge-standing sheets can be easily and readily placed onto the entry section which is subsequently pivoted upwardly for moving the new supply of sheets along the entire conveyor and into the hopper. Accordingly, this reduces the manual effort, in the manual loading system, and it eliminates the need for any mechanical device required for lifting the entire bundle or supply of new sheets to a significant elevation and then depositing those sheets into the entry section.
Further, the present invention also improves upon the prior art in that the supply sheets can be positioned on the pivotal entry section without requiring that the sheets be specially jogged for alignment of the sheets in the feeder conveyor. In this regard, the pivotal entry section of the conveyor includes upright and opposite side edge supports for the sheets for both the alignment and upright retention of the opposite edges when the sheets are positioned in the entry section and when they are conveyed therealong.
Still further, the pivotal entry section of this invention is of a modular type design which is arranged with two pivot axes spaced along its length so that the module can be pivoted, relative to the remainder of the conveyor, at either pivot axis to thereby determine the extent of modules from its pivot axis and downward toward the floor, all for accommodating conveyors disposed at either a low or a high elevation relative to the floor.
Still further, the entry conveyor section of this invention is arranged so that it can receive bound bundles of sheets, and it can do so through the manual loading described because the pivotal section is pivoted downwardly adjacent the floor, and the section is arranged to accommodate release and removal of the binding strap after the bundle is placed into the entry section.
Still further, the entry section of this invention is arranged with a sheet conveyor which aligns with the sheet conveyor of the remainder of the hopper loader conveyor, and thus the new supply of sheets positioned in the entry section are readily and accurately advanced into the remainder of the conveyor for movement toward the hopper.
Other prior art hopper loaders or the like are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,588,180 and 4,618,136. However, those two patents show only upstanding signature conveyors which do not have any pivotal module sections for loading, as in this invention, and differ from this invention as mentioned above.
Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,618,054 shows sheet-handling equipment with a pivotal section at the outlet end of a conveyor, and it is therefore not a pivotal section for loading sheets onto a conveyor and wherein the pivotal section has its own conveyor which matches with that remainder portion of the complete conveyor, as in the present invention. Also, the aforesaid advantages also distinguish the present invention over this patent.
The herein method of handling edge-standing sheets is also novel.